Grant applications OKd

CITY HALL — A nascent proposal to install a Burbank/Glendale public transit link between North Hollywood and Pasadena is among several projects that city officials have in mind for a series of grant applications, which the council approved on Tuesday.

The council's unanimous approval of the applications allows city Planning and Community Development Department staff to seek state and federal transportation funds through the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The funding would be applied to one or more of five city projects, including improved traffic signalization on the city's main arterial streets, added vehicles to the Burbank Bus fleet and an extended Class I bike path extending into the downtown Burbank Metrolink station, Senior Planner David Kriske said.

"Project applications in this program are evaluated based upon regional significance and the ability to improve overall mobility in L.A. County," he said. "Thus projects that show a strong regional benefit exhibiting coordination of multiple jurisdictions will be most competitive."

An east-west transit link between North Hollywood's Red Line Station and Pasadena's Gold Line Station would combine the efforts of Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena officials, who are applying for grant funding within a joint project.

Though planners are only in the early stages of assessing the feasibility of such a connector, the idea received a recent boost through Glendale City Councilman Ara Najarian's work on the MTA board. Najarian secured $150,000 to be put toward researching the project, Kriske said.

"We're in the process currently of seeing how any kind of service might work, which puts us in a peculiar position because we're now in a call-for-project stage where we want to try — if a service is implemented at this corridor — we want to be able to seize on the opportunity to get grant funds," Kriske said.

Early discussions have described the proposal as an "express-type bus service," with possible stops at two or three stations in Glendale and Burbank, Kriske said. In Burbank, the stop would most likely be in the Media District.

But a new east-west link would merely duplicate a Los Angeles Department of Transportation bus line, said Paul Dyson, Burbank resident and president of the Rail Passengers Assn. In addition, vehicle trips related to a station could pose parking problems in the surrounding area, he said.

But the success of the Orange Line in the San Fernando Valley shows that the public is willing to embrace a more efficient service, even if another system is already in place, Councilman Dave Golonski said.

"I do appreciate Mr. Dyson's comments and something we should always look into is in terms of duplication of service," he said. "But I would say that we saw a dramatic change in ridership in the east-west corridor with the Orange Line, and quite frankly, the Orange Line was a duplication of service that paralleled other services that were available, but not available at the same time frame."

The city Planning Department will submit the grant applications to the transportation authority by the end of the month, Kriske said.